The Grundy County R-5 Board of Education will hold a special meeting to discuss making employees essential workers. The meeting will be at the high school on August 26 at 6 pm. The agenda also includes a closed session for personnel records, employees, and student discipline.
(Missouri Independent) – Colored hard hats distinguish different roles and jobs at Seaboard Foods, a major meatpacking plant in Guymon, Oklahoma. Senior management have green. Supervisors wear dark blue. Foreign workers on visas don yellow-green. But Seaboard is part of a small but growing trend in the meatpacking industry, which already largely relied on an […]
(Missouri Independent) – Nursing homes will be required to ensure their staffers are vaccinated against COVID-19, or risk losing federal Medicare and Medicaid dollars, the Biden administration announced Wednesday in a major move on vaccinations as the Delta variant sweeps many states. Under the new nursing home policy, the U.S. Department of Health and Human […]
(Missouri Independent) – Missouri payrolls added exactly 15,000 non-farm jobs in July as the unemployment rate ticked down 0.1 percent, seasonally adjusted data from the federal Bureau of Labor Standards shows. The state’s labor force of 3.08 million, however, declined by 177, and overall employment, which includes self-employed people and farm labor, grew by 4,462 […]
Missouri non-farm payroll employment increased from June 2021 to July 2021, and the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased by a tenth of a percentage point. Employment, seasonally adjusted, increased by 15,000 jobs over the month, with job gains in both goods-producing and service-providing industries. The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.2 percent in July […]
Temporary health care workers are in high demand across Missouri and are commanding quite the price for their services. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports hospitals across the state need the extra staff to deal with surges of COVID-19 patients. That’s led to hourly rates that have risen to $200 an hour in some […]
(Missouri Indepentent) – With cases on the rise among both residents and staff, the nation’s leading advocacy group for retirees is calling on nursing homes to mandate COVID-19 vaccines. The number of COVID-19 cases reported each week in Kansas and Missouri nursing homes is rising again for the first time in months. Missouri, where weekly […]
A new report finds Missouri lags behind many other states in voting access. The Campaign Legal Center graded states on whether they have 10 key voting practices, from no-excuse absentee voting to online tracking of mail-in ballots and ballot drop boxes. Missouri received a score of four out of 10. Denise Lieberman, director of the […]
The Trenton R-9 Board of Education on August 10th discussed COVID-19-related matters for the upcoming school year. Superintendent Mike Stegman began by going over a list of protocols. They included staff and students attending school in person and using social distancing. Masks will be optional for staff and students inside district facilities. It is “highly […]
Pam Stenger keeps memories of her grandmother’s flower garden alive by offering floral bouquets through a Community Supported Agriculture subscription service. As a child, Stenger loved walking to her grandmother’s house and garden and seeing the 50-60 varieties of daffodils lining the gravel road. “She shared her love of flowers with me and showed me […]
(Missouri Independent) – Many of the staff and residents in Shunda Whitfield’s St. Louis County nursing home were sick before they even realized what was going on. It was April 2020, and masks weren’t yet standard practice. Little was known about COVID before it swept through nursing homes, and as a certified nursing assistant, Whitfield […]
Like many industries dealing with worker shortages, so is the Missouri Department of Transportation. MoDOT Director Patrick McKenna says his department has had a high turnover rate for several years. The current state budget includes a pay raise for MoDOT workers, but Missouri still has one of the lowest-paid state workforces in the […]
Chewy is opening a giant fulfillment center near Kansas City this week. “Online pet product retailer Chewy has announced plans to open a new 800,000 square foot eCommerce fulfillment center in Belton. A press release from Gov. Mike Parson’s office says the company expects to hire more than 1,200 workers. Andrew Pitkin. Missourinet […]
Chillicothe firefighters responded to a house fire Saturday morning at 325 Dickinson Street. Chillicothe Police said no one was home when the fire was reported at 7 in the morning. Upon arrival, a tree limb was on the ground with the service power line from the house under the limb. Sparks were coming from the […]
Grundy County’s unemployment rate in June is about in the middle of the rates for area counties. The Missouri Division of Employment Security reports Grundy Countys’ unemployment rate is 4.2%, based on 185 unemployed out of a civilian labor force of 4,400 workers. The June rate for Grundy County is seven-tenths of a point higher […]
Consolidated Machine and Welding announced it will expand its facility in Hannibal, investing $4.3 million and creating 30 new jobs in the area. “We’re excited to see Consolidated Machine and Welding grow in Hannibal,” Governor Mike Parson said. “This new facility brings good-paying jobs and opportunities for our citizens in Northeast Missouri. Businesses often find […]
Seventeen more individuals have been charged in connection with a fraudulent scheme to obtain approximately $11.1 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans and to use those funds to purchase luxury vehicles, jewelry, and other personal items. According to court documents and statements made in court, between May and August 2020, the defendants submitted or […]
U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.), along with the entire Senate Republican caucus, sent a letter to President Biden urging him to abandon his effort to impose a capital gains tax increase on family-owned businesses, farms, and ranches. Repealing this part of the tax code would have a devastating effect on multi-generation operations, which could lead […]
WireCo WorldGroup Inc. announced it is investing $15 million over the next five years to expand production capabilities in its Sedalia facility. The facility currently employs more than 160 individuals, and this expansion will result in the creation of 18 new jobs. “We’re excited to see WireCo finding success and opportunities for growth here in […]
Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.), a member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, helped introduce the Intelligence Community Workforce Agility Protection Act of 2021. Currently, active-duty members of the military can deduct certain moving expenses from their federal taxes, but that benefit does not extend to intelligence community professionals. The bipartisan bill would expand the […]
